1up and Lair: "One word really comes to mind: Epic"

Much has already been said about how the game plays, so after spending some hands-on time with the near final five playable levels -- about a third of the game -- 1up have some thoughts:

#1 -- Playing Lair, one word really comes to mind: Epic.

Seriously, the experience of flying through these stunning, expansive landscapes with tons going on all around you and a fantastic orchestral score playing underneath is really quite something. You've simply not experienced anything like this before -- certainly not on this scale.

The lighting and weather effects (lightning and rain were specifically impressive), the draw distance (you can see for miles and miles), the amount of on screen action at times (tons of other dragons flying through the air, ships in the sea, and warriors on the ground), and the ability to simply and seamlessly switch between fighting high in the sky and down on the ground -- this is absolutely a next generation experience.

I was hyped about this game and some videos look stunning, is just... some bad screenshots came up and the game looked bad. I'm still looking forward to it but I'll check the demo first (can't wait for a demo download on PSN), which makes me happy I can download demos before getting shafted with a bad game like happened a couple times on PS2... I had a subscription to OPM but they killed the mag last winter and well... there weren't always the demos of the games I was interested in.

Anyway, hoping to hear news about this demo and an official release date.

As i wrote above it's like shooters all you do is run and shoot, car racing games, all you do is race, this is a dragon game, and the devs say that whatever you can imagine you could do with a dragon can be done in this game,carry enemies, throw enemies, eat enemies, claw, rip, flame etc. It's not just your average dragon game, not that there have been many dragon games previously.

What's so epic about this game? Nice presentation does not make any game "epic". Just listen to this:" This game is EPIC - great draw distance, great music, 32x32 miles playing fileds, great lightning FX". And, what about the storyline, the message it delivering...

...they are labeled epic due to the scale of the movie and the cast of thousands that appear on-screen. The environments rendered in this game seem huge and each is plush with enemy, ships, dragons, etc. Looking at this game I am reminded of the huge battle in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King....which was epic. I could easily see how this game could seem epic however, no doubt whether or not it feels epic will come down to each gamers own personal experience with the game.

I hear the story is pretty epic as well...with two rival civilisations who must battle to survive as they run out of food....it's meant to be inspired by world events now. Let alone it has a score by a very prominent Hollywood composer - John Debney. I'd call it epic in every sense of the word

...a truly next gen game. Even if the story is not next gen (just look at Gears of War) the graphics, sound and visual scale of the game is what this gen is supposed be all about. I am sick of seeing next-gen games that appear as nothing more than higher-res versions of previous gen games (Forza 2 anyone?).

I'm a 360 owner and so far the only thing that has knocked my socks off on the 360 is the aforementioned Gears. Thats not to say the 360 is not capable of producing more stunning games...its just that they don't exist at the moment.

P.S. - I have to admit I have seen nothing on the 360 that leads me believe its capable of a "Lair" type game on the same scale. No, lets not get into a discussion about disc space. I mean in terms of draw distance and number of concurrent on-screen objects.

I will be getting this game day one. I saw some trailers to this early on in the PS3 life and it really drew me in. Nothing cooler than fighting on a dragon, jumping to another guys dragon, killing them both and then getting back on your dragon. As far as fantasy, please, tell me what cooler than that?

This game definetly has me hooked. I can't wait to play it. Everything I've seen about it besides one person has been positive and overwhelmingly so. I hope they do deliever on the demo soon, but either way I'm sold.